Cal State Long Beach professor who allegedly misused scholarship money to step down

LONG BEACH — A tenured Cal State Long Beach film professor that a university audit found had misused student scholarship money will step down from his position, officials said Tuesday.

Brian Alan Lane, a Hollywood screenwriter and professor in the film and electronics department, allegedly funneled thousands of dollars in student scholarships into a special account that he controlled, according to a 2011 report from the Cal State University Auditor's Office.

The professor was handed a notice of termination late last year following a university investigation, said Cal State University spokesman Mike Uhlenkamp.

As a tenured professor and member of the faculty union, Lane was allowed to appeal the decision in a hearing process that ended when he reached a settlement last month, Uhlenkamp said.

Although Uhlenkamp said Lane's retirement was connected to the audit, the settlement itself makes no mention of the allegations. Instead, it cites the discontinuance of the master's program in which Lane teaches as the reason for his retirement.

Under the settlement, Lane will continue to teach his spring semester courses and two summer courses. He'll stay on through the fall to work full time on a project designing online courses for his department before officially retiring from his position in February 2014. He has agreed not to seek employment on another CSU campus.

Uhlenkamp said university officials chose to settle with Lane rather than pursue further action stemming from the audit. No money was awarded under the settlement, he said.

"It's not necessarily a black and white issue, and while we feel we had a strong case, the case could very well have dragged out at least through the summer, so we opted for a final resolution that was in the best interest of the university," he said.

Reached by phone Tuesday, Lane declined to comment on the audit and whether he had received a termination notice. However, he confirmed he will retire next February, which he said is due to the discontinuation of the university's master's of fine arts degree program in dramatic writing.

He also said he's received several positive letters of recommendation from university officials.

"The highest people at the university have written wonderful letters explaining the truth about me and my contributions to the university," Lane said.

After his time at Cal State Long Beach, Lane, who said he's in his 50 s, said he'll continue to write, produce and possibly teach at another university in the future.

Lane, who's also an attorney, has sued the university twice since joining the campus in 2002. He first sued Cal State Long Beach in 2005 alleging discrimination, Uhlenkamp said. The case was settled out of court.

In 2010, Lane and former Film and Electronics Department Chairman Michael Pounds sued the university, alleging the audit was in retaliation for whistle-blowing on another matter. The case was dismissed last March, Uhlenkamp said.

The audit, released in May 2011, alleges that a university professor, later identified by CSU officials as Lane, filed a false $10,000 reimbursement claim for a student scholarship.

The audit claims that Lane, acting as an attorney for his students, funneled $47,574 in scholarship payments to 12 students into his attorney-client trust account, which he said was at the direction of his students.

The report found that Lane was allowed to unilaterally decide which students would receive scholarships, and in one case, one student got $31,700 in scholarships.

The audit also cited Cal State Long Beach's lack of oversight for scholarship awards and problems with the use of reimbursement request forms that do not require the claimant's signature. The findings prompted the campus to revise its scholarship program.

On his Cal State Long Beach professor profile, Lane describes himself as a novelist, nonfiction writer, media commentator, attorney, professor and screenwriter. He has worked on such television series as "Star Trek: The Next Generation," "Remington Steele" and "Hunter."